You Know You're a Tourist When....

...you stop the car, get out, and take pictures of the bug that lands on your windshield.

Melissa

Road Trip

We took a road trip up to Augrabies Falls National Park, which is in the northwestern part of South Africa, on the border of Namibia.  The morning we left, Andy pulled this message out of a Christmas cracker:

This seemed like a good omen.  We set out, and soon we saw some spectacular views of farms, pastures, and mountains.  

We stayed the first night in a small town called Neuwoudtville.  It's a tourist attraction during flower season, but there wasn't much going on at this time.   People were out in the streets, but none of them seemed to be going anywhere.  The unemployment rate in South Africa is about 25% overall, but we think it might be higher here.  

Melissa

Regarding Christmas

Just so you know, we weren't the only people in South Africa who thought of going to the beach on Christmas Day.

(Oh, and that whitish stuff on the ground is sand, not snow.)

Melissa

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all of our friends and family, especially those in the northern hemisphere.  

Melissa and Andy

Spoonbill

Melissa

Soccer

They're building a new soccer stadium in Cape Town, for the 2010 World Cup.  This photo shows it from the top of Table Mountain.

Melissa

Up Skeleton Gorge

We've hiked around on Table Mountain's slopes many times, and we took the cable car up once.  Recently we finally climbed all the way up on our own two feet.  We went up Skeleton Gorge, which some people say is their favorite route.

The hike started out steep, with a couple of fun spots where we had to climb ladders and scramble up rocks.

At the end of that first leg, we took a quick detour to check out a reservoir.  On the way, we saw a sand dune, which seemed like an odd thing to find on top of a mountain.

After that, we wended our way more slowly upward and then across the table.  On the way, we passed this cool castle-shaped rock.  

 

At the top, the views were far clearer than they were the time we went up by cable car.  

This rock climber preened a bit when he saw me taking his picture.  Little did he know that I just wanted him to offset the view of Lion's Head, which is the big hill, and Robben Island, which used to be the site of a prison.  Nelson Mandela spent a couple of decades locked up there.

Melissa